Cav wins final stage as Boom wins British title

LONDON (AFP) – Holland’s Lars Boom held his nerve to win the Tour of Britain in the final stage in London on Sunday.

Boom (Rabobank), landed the general classification title, while Mark Cavendish (HTC-Highroad) won the final stage and Steve Cummings (Team Sky) finished in second place overall.

“I didn’t want to take too many risks today with the worlds coming up,” Cavendish said. “It was a wet finish and I saw (Ben) Swift lose his wheel on the second last corner so I backed off on the last corner and ended up 20 meters behind coming out the last corner. I thought it was too far back to get it but I went for it anyway and I came through on the line.

“It’s been perfect preparation for me for next week. The Vuelta looked too hard with too many crashes. I was able to control my training and I won two stages which was good.”

Boom took second place in Sunday morning’s stage 8a, the individual time trial, and then held his position in the circuit race, stage 8b.

Boom said he’ll carry good memories back from Britain.

“It was awesome. London is a very nice city. It’s a lovely country, I didn’t expect that. The public was awesome, a lot of cheering so it was a great week for us.

“My most memorable moment was the first stage, the circuit, the small roads, the rain — it was awesome,” he said.

“The crowds were great, it was a spectacular finish for Cav in his home country, as well as for the team to finish a long tour on a high note,” Peiper said.

Cummings was pleased to secure overall second place in the race on the final day. “It’s a good result,” he said. “Obviously with it being our home race it would be good if we could have won.

“We didn’t really have a lot of good luck throughout the race. I crashed, Geraint (Thomas) crashed and then we came up against a really strong rider in Lars Boom on that terrain. But overall it’s pretty good.”